Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Because his dharma talks are amazing compelling, setting me in the path, not only for right concentration & mindfulness.Bhikkhu Bodhi: His knowledge about the buddha's teachings and the pali cannon, he got me really interested in the suttas and the search for truth in the pali canon.

1) Ven. Ajahn Jayasaro - for his sincerity, for his skill to explain Dhamma via his personal understanding and practice (and not just by learning commentaries, suttas, ect., and repeating what is said there).

2) Ven. Bodhi Bhikkhu - for his learning, for his translations, and for the middle-way approach to theravada texts.

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

I've never met him, but I've found a lot of useful perspective in his writing and dhamma talks. He strikes me as having deep, empathetic insight into individual and interpersonal psychology and a talent for connecting those insights with the concepts the Buddha used to analyze the mind. His book "Kamma and the end of Kamma" helped me see family life as an opportunity for, rather than a distraction from, practice. It improved my marriage, helped me grow up a little, and best of all, it is free:

Ajahn Succito talks quite a bit about the frustrations and frictions that go with living in a monastic community -- good medicine for anybody who sees monastic life as a way to escape the dukkha inevitable in living with other people.

Well besides the Monastics who frequent here, who are invaluable members, I would include (and have added two member monastics I feel deserve special note)Sitagu SayadawAjahn LiamAjahn MunindoAjahn AmaroAjahn VajiroAjahn GhandhasiloVenerable PasalaVenerable Bhikshu Hufieng (hope the spelling is correct)Venerable AnalayoMichael Kewleyand last but not least Greagory Krahmer.

I could continue, but the list would be just people I liked then.

Except for Venerable Analayo I have met each of these teachers, and whether they know it or not have given me fine examples, even if I havn't lived up to their examples. and those who are underlined have changed my opinion in a big way, even if they hadn't done so directly.

They are also not necessarily in order of how much I like them but Vassa/when I met them in person.

Last edited by Cittasanto on Fri Feb 17, 2012 9:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

... and if I were to add some I haven't met, or who have passed away...Ajahn ChahAjahn ThanissaroCharlotte Joko BeckShunryu Suzuki

“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.” ― Ajahn Chah